Glory Season

Close enough, though. As if suddenly unleashed, constellations burst forth across the simulated heavens. Hello, friends, Maia greeted them. While seeking the known patterns of winter, she kept watch for the blue glitter of a planet, her homeworld. Soon all star positions were proper. She slowed, circled, and performed a spiral sweep. But however she hunted, no blue marble swam into view. "I don't get it. Stratos should be somewhere about here."

They stared together at the empty patch of sky. Maia dimly heard a messenger come and mutter to Leie that the tense status quo was holding in the hallway, but signs of bustling activity at the far end were making the men nervous and worried. Clearly, something was going to happen, soon.

Meanwhile Maia struggled with frustration and pride. Once upon a time, at least some folk on her world had felt comfortable enough with spaceflight to simulate it, use it in games and tests. Probably, now and then, they even ventured out — at least in order to remain able. It meant that Lysos never insisted that her heirs stay forever grounded. That must have been a later innovation.

The navigator, too, seemed puzzled, thwarted. Then, suddenly, he pointed. "There! A planet!" He frowned. "But that's not Stratos. It's Demeter."

Maia saw he was correct. The gas giant was a familiar sight, dominant member of the planetary system. "It's Demeter, all right. Sitting smack dab in the middle of the Fishtail. Oh, Lysos," she groaned.

"What's wrong?" Leie asked. "Can't you use Demeter to fine-tune—"

"It's in the wrong part of the sky!" Maia cut in. "As of a few days ago, Demeter was in the Trident. That must mean—"

"Time," the navigator agreed, looking at Maia. "We're displaced in time." His eyes widened, apparently sharing Maia's thought. They almost knocked heads bending to look again at the sextant's little display. "Sidereal? That's a word used by astronomers, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Maia replied. "It has to do with measuring time by the stars. Then the number must be—"

"A coordinate," he finished. "A date? But it's a negative number."

"The past, then. With a date set in decimals, instead of years and months. Let's say it's based on the same calendar. There's only a small fraction after the decimal, which implies—"

" — that the date's just after New Year, with the sun at the vernal equinox."

"So we're a quarter of an orbit and ninety degrees off! We should be looking for a springtime sky!"

This time the man took the controls, while Maia guided him. They were getting the hang of it, and things sped quickly. "Steady . . . steady . . . Port ten degrees . . . down five . . ." Stars and planets swept by, until Leie cried out in joy. The sun and Wengel Star were gone from sight, but their combined light was seen once more, reflecting off a blue-, brown-, white-, and green-hued globe that swelled rapidly into view, its continents and seas punctuated by polar caps and gauzy films of stratospheric clouds. A retinue of silvery moons swept past as the scene drove steadily toward the great azure ball.

This must be what Renna saw, when he approached in his starship, Maia realized. Envy had never flowed so strongly within her veins. I never imagined it so beautiful. My homeworld.

For the soul, it was a feast that satisfied hungers more yearning than the one in her belly. Despite the preachings of orthodox and heretic temples alike, the maternal deity, Stratos Mother, was but a lovely abstraction in comparison. How, Maia wondered, could anyone know or appreciate a world without looking on its face? One didn't ask such absurdity of human lovers.

How could we ever have abandoned this? Maia marveled, recognizing features from globes and atlases, minus all the lines and labels that made human presence seem so urgent. In fact, the vast reaches of mountain and forest and desert seemed barely touched. The view was an instant cure for vain conceit.

The approach slowed as a subjective transition took place. Formerly, they had seemed to move horizontally, heading toward the planet. Now, with ocean and islands covering the entire scene, all sensation of motion abruptly turned vertical. They were falling.

The outline of Landing Continent enlarged, sweeping to the left. The Mediant Coast gleamed. Maia briefly caught sight of checkerboard farmlands and silver rivers arched by spidery bridges, before the landmass fled at an angle and southern seas filled the scene, scintillating with profuse sunlight reflections, brushed by phalanxes of heavy clouds. To the southeast loomed a chain of narrow, pinpoint peaks which, from a distance, were detectable more by how great currents split into a thousand ruffled streamers in their wake. The combed sea changed color downstream from those jutting spires.

Maia recognized the outline of this very archipelago — the Dragons' Teeth — from the chart she and Brod had used to sail from Grimke Isle.